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locals to bust without fussing over a mere embezzler from some woodsy place two thousand miles away. So now the convicted sibling killer has gone to that bank vault in the sky. Why do we care? From the standpoint of a hard-news item, that is.”
    I hesitated. If the letters to Milo stopped after Larry died, there was no story. But if they didn’t, then Mitch would get the assignment. I didn’t feel right about leaving him out of the loop, so I told him why the sheriff had paid us an early-morning call.
    “That’s weird,” Mitch said when I finished, “especially since Larry died over the weekend. Is there any reason you can think of that would set somebody off after all this time?”
    I hadn’t thought about that possibility. “The murder occurred in November ten years ago, shortly before Thanksgiving. Yes, I suppose there might be a connection. I’d like to think it’s a crank, maybe somebody Milo picked up for speeding or a DUI. I can imagine the kind of weirdos you had in Detroit.”
    “The bigger the city, the bigger the nut pool.”
    For a few moments, we ate in silence. I took that as a good sign. I’d known Mitch for only a short time, but we were from the same generation, same blue-collar family background, both state university grads, had big-city newspaper experience—and both of us were now in semi-exile three thousand feet above sea level. We’d established an easy rapport and were comfortable with each other. Although I didn’t know his wife very well, I sensed that they were devoted, if not necessarily happy. Ichanged the subject. “Do you know why Vida’s taking a long lunch hour?”
    Mitch chuckled. “I doubt it’ll include three double martinis.”
    “I just wondered. It’s not like her. I thought she might’ve said something.”
    “To me?” Mitch shook his head. “I don’t think she’s quite convinced that I wasn’t involved in Jimmy Hoffa’s disappearance.”
    “Were you at the
Free Press
when that happened?”
    “No. I was cutting my journalistic teeth on the
Ypsilanti Courier
. A weekly, of all things.” He chuckled again. “But I’d joined the
Free Press
staff by the time Jimmy was declared dead in 1982. I was neither shocked nor saddened. And nobody was surprised.”
    When we finished eating, Mitch showed me the photos he’d taken at Mountain View Gardens. Luckily, a young family named Curtis had been looking for a tree. Mom, Dad, a three-year-old, and a baby in a stroller made for an appealing shot.
    “That works,” I said. “In fact, I can’t make up my mind between the second, fourth, and sixth photo. You and Kip can decide. How did the interview with … what’s the new prof’s name? It’s odd.”
    Mitch grinned. “Beaufort Vard’i, of Anglo-Indian descent, born in San Francisco. He goes by Bo—that’s B-O—and he told me there should be an apostrophe in Vard’i between the
d
and the
i
, don’t know if the name was originally Arabic or Hindi, but his parents dropped it when they became American citizens.”
    I shook my head in confusion. “I think we can leave that part of the interview out. Names like O’Toole and Fong are about as exotic as we get around here. I hope the interview was more conventional.”
    “It was,” Mitch assured me. “He’s a sharp guy, and his realinterest is genetics, but he stuck to his theories of teaching biology and anthropology. Married, one kid in high school, moved here because he and his wife like the outdoors and it’s a hell of a lot cheaper than living in San Francisco. I’ve got a couple of decent photos, too. He’s good-looking, so one of these days he’ll get hit with a sexual harassment suit that’ll most likely be based not in fact but on hope, or the lack thereof.”
    “Got it,” I said as the phone rang.
    Mitch collected his gear and lunch leavings while I picked up the receiver. I was only mildly surprised to hear Ginny’s sister-in-law, Donna Wickstrom, on the other end of the